We are reading the first volume of 夜カフェ as the Beginner Book Club!.
This thread is for chapter related discussion. We are reading together from the aforementioned date on, but this thread will be kept open mu~ch longer (like 10 years longer). So don’t be shy to ask questions even if you are late to the party
Vocabulary List
Feel free to add any words you looked up as well! Page numbers may be off by one or two because of differences between physical and digital editions, but we try to keep the words roughly in order of appearance
The book is also available over at koohi.cafe (formerly known as floflo).
Discussion Guidelines
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I read the chapter today.
Puh… another handycraft lesson in the beginning. These can be quite tricky. Later on I liked that she didn’t ignore Tinas predicament, even though she knew tina wouldn’t appriceate it. It let to them warming up to one another and showed that hanabi got stronger mentally during the break.
Overall this week was pretty hard. I think it had the most unknown verbs of any chapter so far for me. And verbs are pretty key to understanding the sentence ^^.
I interpret the sentence similarily but slighlty differently:
There are people who help out, but because it’s tiring to accomodate each other (presumably since they are strangers after all), tina has them go home in the evening. → Therefore she needs to eat bentos instead. (next sentence)
Agreed. I found myself looking up a lot more than I expected when I did my initial read for the vocabulary sheet. And I’m still not 100% sure I fully understand the description of how she made her recipe book, but I wasn’t going to kill myself on that hill trying to figure it out either.
It’s mostly the bits about the plastic board that she cut up to make letters that isn’t quite making sense to me. My understanding is that she essentially cut them into the alphabet shapes and glued them onto the cover (grossly oversimplified), but again, I’m not 100% confident that something there isn’t going over my head.
It likely doesn’t help that my eyes are equally likely to glaze over at a description of something like that in English, so there could be something about it I don’t understand by virtue of not having much interest in handicrafts. The Japanese at least has the benefit of being Japanese, so it gets more of my attention by default, but handicrafts, while cute, just aren’t something I find terribly fascinating.
I think you basically got it. The part I didn’t get is the part about 中綿. What padding could she be talking about? Do books have padding? Maybe padding on the covers to make them thicker?
Story comments
It was great that she was able to speak normally in the face of Yayako coming to mess with her. It wasn’t even a confrontation or anything. She completely defused the situation. Awesome!
And then she broke the ice with Tina. Things are looking up now
Yeah, that was definitely a bit hard to wrap my head around as well.
My interpretation was that the quilt padding she describes was intended to be decorative, since plain cardstock/cardboard wouldn’t look great, but maybe I’m wrong? It would also serve to make the book a little more comfortable to carry around, since it would be softer to the touch than something paper…
Either way, presumably, she is doing something similar to the 2nd method here, but that doesn’t show any padding anywhere, just decorative paper, so that kinda leads me to think even more the padding is decorative, though it would also definitely make the cover a bit thicker and thus more likely to last, too
Wow, you did some research! That method does seem like it matches what she was doing. Maybe the “padding” refers to the inside covers on step 8. The 中 in 中綿 makes me feel like it should be something on the inside.
Ah, yes, seeing that now, I agree with you entirely! I missed that step in my quick skim (my “research” was just Googling “homemade book how-to”, and jumping down to the section that specified Japanese when I saw it was specified differently and looking at the materials to guess, since I wasn’t particularly interested in reading the whole how-to, having just read it in the book. )
But seeing the finished product now does make me feel a bit more confident in understanding how it was done, at least, so no more mysteries there.
You got the main idea. More specifically, she’s using this cool plastic thing that you can paint on and it shrinks into a thicker, rigid plastic when you bake it in the oven. I’ve seen it used to make things like keychains before, and here’s a random video I found with some examples (watching the plastic shrink is quite satisfying ). From my understanding, she is making holes in each of the letters so that she can sew them onto the cloth that she is then going to glue onto the cover.
My first comment here because I just caught up with the book club
That bit about the oven makes a lot more sense now. I did understand from the description, of course, that she used it to shrink the plastic letters, and I assumed that it had to be some kinda specialty product, but had no idea what exactly. Thanks for sharing that video!
That was a cool video! It was pretty funny the first time the music changed. I didn’t understand why the seahorse got its own theme song until the next song change when it became clear each segment would have its own music
I came here to share this video on the プラ板 (cool product, I don’t think I’ve seen it before) but I see that you beat me to it
I’m enjoying all the practical descriptions actually, be it cleaning, cooking, or crafts. It’s not vocabulary that’s easy to come across in books (my only source of learning at the moment), so I appreciate being exposed to it. When learning a(ny) language I’ve noticed that this kind of practical vocabulary often gets overlooked - you typically go from introducing yourself and asking for directions to discussing climate change and juvenile delinquency, then at some random moment you suddenly realize that even though you considered yourself fluent(ish), you can’t accurately describe simple everyday things that are taken for granted. yes, I’m speaking from experience
This part definitely felt harder than the one’s before for some reason, but might have been me not having enough concentration or something.
Not exactly sur I know what yamato is trying to do at the end, if I understood it correctly, he took out some garlic and anchovies and asked the girls to bake and steam those respectively? Sounds like a hell of a smell that would cause. I’m sure we’ll find out, but man, I wouldn’t be in that kitchen for very long.
By my understanding, Saki told Yamato to make “the usual thing,” and then while Hanabi’s wondering what he’s making, Aiko is the one to tell Hanabi to put “this” (don’t think it said, but I assume it’s the main dish, and I don’t remember from ch 9 what else they ate) in the oven and Tina to steam “these” (the vegetables mentioned a couple lines later). They’re separate from what Yamato’s making (revealed in the first line of ch 9 to be bagna càuda, a type of hot dip, which the veggies Tina’s steaming will be eaten with. Seems it’s cooked in a saucepan on the stove) but yeah, either way, does not seem like it would smell very good.
I don’t mean that I literally don’t understand what’s happening, just that whatever they are making is the thing I don’t quite know yet, was mainly trying to make a joke
I’ve finally found the time to finish my first read of this chapter! Expect questions soon!
Story notes
I really enjoyed this one. The handicraft part not so much (I’m with @MrGeneric on this, but at least it was short…), but after that… she finally didn’t let Yayako get her down! And there were lots of interactions with Tina this time too. It turns out that both of Hanabi’s guesses - Tina is eating alone at home, and Tina is getting bullied - were right on the money. And it seems like Tina might like working in the cafe.
Also the taxi/dental clinic mystery deepens!
I am now convinced that the sunglasses were there to help them stay anonymous.
There is definitely something going on here.
The end was a bit weird. Maybe the author didn’t find a good point split the chapter, and making it one chapter would’ve been too much? It seems like it just continues on into chapter 9.
Alright, brace yourself, here comes the first batch!
ebook page 85:
なかなか細かい作業だけど、できていく工程が楽しい。
Is she saying that it is “rather minor/trivial work, but fun”, or “rather detailed/difficult work, but fun”?
ebook page 86:
…と書いて、目立つようにマスキングテープをはってみた。
I know てみる as “to try and do something to see what the result is”, so… she affixed that tape to see if it had the desired effect of making the text underlined by it stand out? (I’m asking because somehow that seems like a weird thing to “try” for me, and more a thing she just did because she knew it would work.)
ebook page 89:
ティナという言葉が、やけにはっきり聞こえた。
Why is she highlighting here that the word “Tina” sounded “extremely clear”? Looking at the other translations for やけに - “awfully; frightfully; desperately; violently; unduly; extremely” - did the speaker say it full of contempt? Or is Hanabi just making clear that there is no way she could’ve misheard?
ebook page 90:
中庭の中央にある花壇のすきまや、花々のあいだをさがしていると、ティナちゃんが上ばきのままやってきた。
What’s the や here? Is it something like “such as”? Like “While I was searching in places like [中庭の中央にある花壇のすきま] and [花々のあいだ]”?
ebook page 91:
椿の木のあいだをはうようにして手をのばすと、くつにとどいた。
Is that “When I crawled between the Camellia trees and stretched out my hand, I reached the shoes.”?
ebook page 92:
「だれかに借りができるの、わたし、 いやなの。
What exactly is that Stem form + ができる there? It reminds me of ことができる, but that doesn’t seem to fit at all.
Stuff I figured out by myself that might be useful for others
ebook page 89:
なにかこまっている様子だったけど、よけいなおせっかいはしないと決めて、先に校舎を出た。
The はしない is this.
かなか細かい作業だけど、できていく工程が楽しい。
“rather detailed work, but fun”?
ebook page 90:
中庭の中央にある花壇のすきまや、花々のあいだをさがしていると、ティナちゃんが上ばきのままやってきた。
What’s the や here? Is it something like “such as”? Like “While I was searching in places like [中庭の中央にある花壇のすきま] and [花々のあいだ]”?
Yep, you nailed it. She searched other places not mentioned.
Chapter 8 (Beginner Book Club)
Maybe padding on the covers to make them thicker?
)
). From my understanding, she is making holes in each of the letters so that she can sew them onto the cloth that she is then going to glue onto the cover.
